A Project in Performance and Collaboration

Cheon pyo Lee shares documents of a performance piece, based on a passage from a book that he is collaborating on with two writers, Razmig Bedirian and Amir Ahmadi Arian. Lee recently compiled a book of expenses from residencies in Basel and Swansea; the collection of receipts from Basel was used for an audio performance, presented at the Art Book fair at Art Basel in 2015. After his residency in Swansea (2016), Lee approached two writers who developed short stories using Lee's book of residency receipts as reference. With the book slated for publication in August 2017, Lee has been developing performances drawn from the book's stories. For Lookie-Lookie, Lee presents a video drawn from a passage of Razmig Bedirian's story, “The Rhinemaiden: A shortness of breath and a taste of ash.”

Cheon pyo Lee & Razmig Bedirian, Contributors, Lookie-Lookie

THE RHINEMAIDEN: A SHORTNESS OF BREATH AND A TASTE OF ASH

“After her arrest, Zainab was taken to our interrogation chambers, I walked into the room, without any of the questions that I had learnt by rote and used as any other honed tool of interrogation, I wasn’t looking for answers that would save the colony, lead to an FLN cell. No, Vacationer, I went to be stunned again by her eyes of moss and cast bronze. She spat at me, something she’d continue to do every time we met, before anything, any word or gesture, she’d spit at me, aiming for my face, and she knew, for it came every time, that I’d slap her across the face, with a force that left my palm glowing red, something she’d berate at after we admitted we were for each other. Your French skin is whiny, as for her own skin, she’d say it’d never betray its pain. And that’s what will win us this war, she said, the land will beat you and whip you and the marks, the gashes, bruises and lacerations on French skin will have us dragging ourselves through the streets we built and crumbled, begging for beauty, begging for the French skin in their minds. And thus, the colony will crumble. And it did, akh, Vacationer, it fell just like that. But of course, it is more complex than that. The reality is nobody, no French nor Algerian, fell without a knife cast like a gnomon on their backs. And the colony, to be frank, has not crumbled but resorted to covert ways… Zainab’d be sitting on the floor, in the bars of sunlight cast through the window staring at the sand-matted sky even though I made great efforts to obtain her a rocking wicker chair and milk crate full of books and magazines from one of the French schools that closed down. By the second month, she stopped throwing herself at me with fists which loosened their grip as she struck repeatedly at my chest. I met her almost daily, always in the afternoons and always until midnight. I was accused by my inferiors of neglecting my duties, but my public reputation of obviating the café bombing said my position as Colonel. I told my superiors that Zainab would lead us to the heart of the FLN. Later, there would be no need to tell them it was a wild goose chase, as there were greater fingers to point at star-breasted officials and generals. By then Emma was born and I had already secured our travel to Basel.”